Greedy Goblin

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Jump changes, dumb Goons, smart Goons

This is an extra post, written because the prepared post for today is somewhat obsolete. The jump range changes prove that CCP doesn't listen to those who demand freebies for themselves.

If you read the comment section of the new dev blog that introduces huge jump nerf, you see two very different kind of Goons. One is doomsaying and joins the N3PL posters with their "I quit EVE now" crying, the other one is celebrating. Obviously one of them is right and the other is dumb. Let's see how this change will affect various groups:

New Sov holders arising: this is the stated goal of the changes. To shake up the stagnation and let new groups in. This will completely fail. The only change on the Sov map will be related to HERO/Provi who can finally finish their war without PL being able to mess with them routinely. And even they can only hold Sov if the big ones let them. Why? Because the change slows down the N3/PL Supercap fleet and the CFC 1000 Megathrons, but doesn't stop them. It's true that they can't show up on every random tower reinforce and be at home for dinner. They must plan a deployment carefully. So they'll probably ignore losing Sov, letting the new Sov holder grind down a few constellations in subcaps and a few capitals. Then the big one deploys, grinds everything back in a few days and the aspirant can't even form up for a fight. Even if we ignore the obvious morale effect, grinding down a constellation in subcaps and a few dreads takes much more man-hours than grinding back with supers or 100 dreads+500 Megas. So a capture-recapture cycle costs more man-hours to the small than the big, while the big has much more. Also, the small one is constantly in the warzone, making no ISK, while the big one spends the capture phase at home, making ISK. It's no-brainer that the attacker will give it up.

CFC vs N3/PL: CFC is a clear winner here, making one type of the Goons rightfully happy. The changes will make it impossible for the same supercap blob or the same Megathron fleet to fight in Querious and Cobalt Edge in the same day. The CFC has theoretical advantage since Megas take gates faster and jumpclone+ship cache is cheaper for Megas than Nyxes. However this is practically irrelevant as the average CFC pilot is more casual so if the FC tells them after a 2 hours structure grind in Querious "now let's take 60 gates to Cobalt Edge" he is likely to uninstall the game. So both groups must deploy to one region and stay there. The real advantage of CFC is that Mega fleet can be splitted, the Wrecking Ball cannot. Why? Because the half-Mega fleet that finds itself outnumbered can MJD out of the bubble, safe up in the staging tower and log out for the day at the cost of a few dozen battleship losses. The half-Wrecking Ball fleet that finds itself outnumbered is going down with trillions on the killboard. So in a CFC/N3PL war the CFC can split and grind multiple regions while N3PL can progress only in one region. The war would end with N3PL condensed into a few regions space that is small enough to be covered by the Wrecking Ball.

While the dumb Goons celebrate their victory in a war that will never come, the smart Goons are crying over their inevitable defeat in the war that is upon them: the one against pirates. You see, pirates don't want to take Sov, they let Goons pay the bills. They take what makes Sov worthy of taking: money moons and ratters. Staging from nearby NPC stations, pirates don't have to project their power, they are at home. By running locator agents on CFC super pilots, they can easily determine if its safe or not to deploy capitals to grind mining towers. Being expert small gang fighters, they can protect them from subcaps (and forming up 1000 Megas doesn't go unnoticed by spies). They kill and drive away the ratters and renters and make ISK in the process. Of course sooner or later CFC has enough, deploys there and grinds everything back. But - unlike with the new Sov holders - this capture-recapture cycle is profitable for the pirates and not the owners. The owners have to deploy-undeploy, the pirates are at home. The pirate towers create ISK for the pirates owning them, the CFC towers create ISK for the pirates siphoning them. The pirates earn ISK during all phases (local missions when CFC is away, highsec alts when CFC is deployed) while CFC pilots can't rat while deployed. The only way for CFC to counter it is being permanently deployed, but they can't be permanently deployed to everywhere. This is the reason N3PL won't be defeated. Capturing more regions would add nothing to the CFC, as they couldn't use them anyway.

Last question: why will pirates plunder CFC and not N3PL? Because CFC went out of their way to make everyone who isn't them hate them and want to take revenge on them. Also, N3PL knows to PvP, so they can fight back the pirates without deployment, in a small-gang way, while CFC small gangs are food for everyone who knows more than pressing F1.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"By running locator agents on CFC super pilots, they can easily determine if its safe or not to deploy capitals to grind mining towers."

Actually those changes makes defence more "easy". Real deployments wont happen, and all will stay at home ready to defend. If pirates will field capitals, (i hope they will do), they will get smashed even more. Not only supers can destroy them.Remember evokes disaster.The defending sov entity has just to spread the staging systems of carriers in every homeregion.

Which is exactly why I posted two blog entries before that CCP don't know their game mechanics and cannot preview any change they implement.As soon as these jump range nerfs are implemented, no major power bloc will ever lose significant sov ever, thus perpetuating the bludoughnut situation. As usual, wwell done CCP...

And to include JF in this nerf is so thoughtless, maybe CCPgets money from the publishers of Archeage...

How about the CFC divides itself among regions? Let Razor deploy and maintain control over Tenal, Fcon Branch, Goons DeKlein etc.They'll just have to take care of their own home regions more instead of depending on the other CFC alliances.

@Anonymous: if capitals are fielded 15 ly away from their staging system, subcaps either have to take gates (that takes about 20 mins in battleships) or 3 titan bridges (that will take about 15 mins). Considering that every major powerblock is riddled with spies, the targets will be long gone before the defense fleet arrives.

@Second anon: stangnation is understood as "no fights". No one would call the first month of Fountain war "stagnation", despite barely any Sov changed hand. Who cares if Sov doesn't change if the underlying status quo (who can rat there) does.

@Third: we know nothing of occupancy Sov. It is most likely occupancy based indexes. No one in his right mind would implement the ability to flip Sov by mining.

@Raziel Walker: that would be the theoretical solution. However most of these entities have integrated into a coalition and unable to fight alone. They have no FCs, battle logistics, own SRP, nothing. They have a bunch of F1 pushers. Goons, Razor, maybe FA could fight alone. The rest would suffocate if the FC wouldn't tell them "inhale - exhale".

@Last anon: putting in 2 more mids in the way of the JF wouldn't kill a dedicated JF pilot. He'll probably even have alts to decease jump fatigue.

@Anonymous: if capitals are fielded 15 ly away from their staging system, subcaps either have to take gates (that takes about 20 mins in battleships) or 3 titan bridges (that will take about 15 mins). Considering that every major powerblock is riddled with spies, the targets will be long gone before the defense fleet arrives.

dont you think that pirates also have spies?furthermore you will see if capitals are fielded by pirates to attack something.also these guys cannot jump directly back due to jump fatigue, so it makes it more risky for them.a t3 fleet is very fast there, it dont need 20minutes.

and then the tower gets reinforced? and then what? you know the timer, you form a fleet and op success. it is really no issue.

preventing deployments is making more stagnation into eve. you will see that the goons will get happy to have at least some pirates attacking them, because nothing else will happen. at least some pvp. they will get smashed and srp by you :) thanks for the content

Goons arent interested in more sov space. Why do u think they introduced their renter program.Goons and every other big alliance knows that they cant defend such big space, with the new changes surely more small corps will conquer 0.0 systems near low sec but they wont conquer important goon terreritory.

Add in cooldown/fatigue..you sure it wont kill a dedicated jump pilot?Not to mention having to make sure it is safe at each location or that you can dock.

There are ofc other possibilities, the ice, moongoo and other null products used for silly things such as pos fuel, module and ship production could be moved through WH, or the JF pilots can go gate to gate....

Having done 108 gate jumps in 1 day in a JF, I can tell you that you wont be finding the number of pilots who will currently hop in to help out still willing to do it.

CCP have said they know this will affect T2, but, after all, people did it fine before JF, so they can do it fine now...which is good for 0.0 producers, as the price of materials will now increase, or, they will just keep it down there and build their own stuff.

Of course, lowsec _can_ do moongoo, and hi-sec can do ice, but not enough to match demand.